


out here in the dust if you don’t have trust (ain’t nothing left of us)

by SexyCoinkiDicks



Series: It's Rather Like Being a Bloody Werewolf, Isn't It? [3]
Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: (and trying not to kill each other), Alpha Dirk, Alpha Farah, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bonding, Canon Character of Color, Character Study, Discussions of sexism, Fights, Friends Supporting Friends, Friends With Benefits, Friendship, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Introspection, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Todd, On the Run, Past Drug Use, Pining, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Sex, Post-Season/Series 01, Power Dynamics, Pre-Season/Series 02, Pre-Slash, Protectiveness, Relationship Study, Road Trips, Unresolved Emotional Tension, WIP, creepy alphas, dirk is present in name only i'm afraid, discussions of racism, discussions/disassembling of a/b/o dynamics, this is going to be a slow and angsty ride i'm afraid, todd misses him a lot and is a pining mess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-23 04:51:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21314473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SexyCoinkiDicks/pseuds/SexyCoinkiDicks
Summary: Todd and Farah run from the FBI- and from confronting their differences.Part of my Brotzly Omegaverse series- stories uploaded as I write them, mostly out of chronological order, but can all be read as stand-alone one-shots.
Relationships: Farah Black & Todd Brotzman
Series: It's Rather Like Being a Bloody Werewolf, Isn't It? [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/996627
Comments: 13
Kudos: 19





	out here in the dust if you don’t have trust (ain’t nothing left of us)

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, it is I, and I am not dead. Yay?
> 
> This is one I've had in the works for ages, and unfortunately it's not finished yet- but it was getting long already, and I've decided to post it in parts so I feel productive and keep the old account warm while I work. This here's part one, I'm not sure when two and three will be ready but rest assured I'm working on it. 
> 
> I should warn you that part one is basically just angst from start to finish. The mood will lift a little by the end of part two and by the end of three we'll be in a happier place and more or less ready to kick start the events of season 2- which are pretty much the same aside from one or two key differences so Todd is very much going to get a big excitable hug from Dirk at the end of all this. But this part is important set-up to the discussions Todd and Farah need to have in this universe, so I hope you'll bear with me.
> 
> This is a Farah and Todd story, but not a Farah/Todd story; there will be discussions of intimacy and 'friends with benefits' type relationship progression but my Farah is a lesbian and my Todd is head over heels for Dirk. They make do with what they have and develop a strong bond from it, but if romantic Farah/Todd is what you're looking for this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is an omegaverse story, featuring discussions of the biological traits and societal norms therein: if you don't like that, do not read this. While I aim to write a lot of stories about the things I love about this trope and the ways it can be used to deepen and explore characters and relationships in positive ways, it comes with some inevitable baggage, so if this will be unpleasant/squicky/triggering for you please turn back now.
> 
> Thank you for bearing with me, and I hope you enjoy part one!
> 
> Title from 'One Foot' by WALK THE MOON
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I don't own these characters, nor do I profit from this work or any derivative works based upon them- I just like to play with them from time to time<3

“Pass the salt.”

Farah, scowling, slides the grubby plastic shaker across the table. “Figured you’d have enough going on to raise your blood pressure right now.”

Todd rolls his eyes, showering a liberal dose of extra salt on his fries. “This shit tastes like cardboard.”

Picking up a limp fry of her own, Farah has to agree. This place is rough, even by their unfortunately low standards. But that’s the thing about middle of nowhere dives- no competition, no need to impress. It has what they need right now, that’s the main thing. Food? Check. Wi-fi? Check. Gas? Check. At least two visible exits? Check and check. Directly adjacent car parking for quick getaway? Check. It was a stroke of luck they even found the place when they did. Even luckier that the few other dishevelled patrons are too downtrodden or generally unimpressed to look at them twice. This is the kind of place _made _for travelling under the radar. Which is where they need to stay, if they wanna get out of this unarrested- or at the very least alive.

“Well, finish up quick- I don’t like us staying still too long,” she says quietly, casting a glance to their nearest fellow diner; a balding man, caucasian, fifties, alpha, slumped at the bar over the same empty glass he’s been nursing for an hour. “Now we’ve figured out our route we should stock up and get moving.”

She hears a sigh from Todd, and the sound of another fry- this one hard and alarmingly crunchy- disappearing into his mouth. Followed quickly by the scrape of fingernails on cheap laminate. Now it’s her turn to roll her eyes. “Okay, c’mon, it’s not that ba-”

It’s the smell that stops her in her tracks.

Stomach dropping in dread, she whips her head round to stare at him.

Todd stares down at his plate, hand clenched on the grimy table almost as if for support. When he casts his eyes up to her, her surprise is mirrored there, as well as the curl of anxiety as his stubbled cheeks flush red on sight. She stares at him a moment despite herself, attention forcibly caught by the flare.

And the view in her peripherals tells her she’s not the only one.

Tearing her eyes from Todd, she levels the pricked ears and interested eyes of her alpha friend at the bar with a threatening glare, standing up so sharply that her chair scrapes deafeningly across the cracked lino. “Todd,” she says, voice taut and steely as a mandolin string. “We’re leaving.”

If Todd has one of his customary protests up his sleeve, he doesn’t use it. Instead he stands, teetering slightly as he gathers up their stuff, laptop and chargers haphazardly stuffed into the backpack with trembling hands. Farah wants to lend a hand, but she doesn’t like the idea of taking her eyes off the clientele just now.

“Come on,” she says lowly, hand hovering a few respectful inches from Todd’s elbow as he zips the backpack. “Let’s go. Straight to the car, understand?”

_That _gets a glare and a disdainful scoff. “Fuck off, I’m not a goddamn kid.”

Her guiding hand clenches into a fist, but she grits her teeth against the retort she wants to hurl back. “Not. The time. _Out_.”

He glowers at her- ungrateful little _asshole- _but complies, swinging the backpack over his shoulder as he stalks towards the door, throwing a glare at their creeper buddy for good measure. Farah, unwilling to hang around making peace and putting out his fires, follows him before anyone can complain. If she stops to placate every alpha the guy offends, they’ll never make it past the state line.

She has one blissfully quiet moment, between the driver’s side door slamming shut and Todd opening the passenger, to mourn her abandoned coffee.

* * *

Three weeks. Three weeks since everything went quickly, suddenly, _spectacularly _to shit.

Three weeks since Farah found him, curled up in a foetal ball of agony on the diner floor as his first real pararibulitis attack burned him up from the inside out. Since she picked him up like he was nothing, her own uptight sense of propriety forgotten because Dirk was nowhere to be seen and her ‘gut instinct’ told her they needed to get the hell out of town.

She was right, of course. Doesn’t mean he has to be happy about it.

Two weeks since he’d realised the violent sickness, migraines and fever he kept experiencing even between attacks was due to the basic incompatibility of Amanda’s leftover meds with his omega heat suppressants, and made the reluctant decision to drop the latter. He’d only have run out of them on the road, anyway.

Thirteen days since he’d realised just how _not _pretty coming off of hormone suppressants after coming up on fifteen years of reliance was gonna be.

“I’m _fine,_” Todd grits out, clutching the backpack to his chest like a pillow.

Farah glances at him in a way that screams _‘like _fuck _you are’, _but keeps her eyes dutifully on the road otherwise. “I saw a motel a couple miles back. Can you hold on ‘til we get there?”

Todd laughs bitterly. “Hold on to _what? _Jesus, Farah, we don’t- we don’t have to go _anywhere, _just park us someplace and go for a fucking walk, I’ll-” he breaks the sentence on a curse as a twinge of fiery pain twists in his gut. “I’ll. Be _fine._”

“No, no way,” she says sternly, shaking her head. “You need- you need space, and a bed, and, and, _definitely _a shower-”

“Yeah, sure, a fucking shower’s gonna solve _all _my problems,” he hisses, writhing uncomfortably in place as he feels that molten heat start to pool between his thighs.

“It’s _not for you,_” she mutters, pressing a little harder on the accelerator. He’s never seen her come so close to breaking a speed limit. She must be worked up. “Can’t _breathe _in here.”

He glares daggers at her. _“Thanks.” _

“Oh, for cry- you _know _that isn’t what I- ugh, for_get _it!”

She hammers the accelerator, and Todd’s roiling stomach gets left somewhere behind the taillights. Swallowing tightly, he squeezes his eyes shut and clutches the backpack for dear life.

It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate her. Honestly, it’s a fucking _miracle _that when he found himself on the run for the government (god, what a fucking weird yet hardcore thing to say, he wished he had someone to brag to) he found himself stuck with someone like her. Someone smart, capable, no-nonsense, full of fighting knowhow and counter espionage techniques. By all accounts, he hit the jackpot, apart from one tiny, _tiny _detail.

She’s an alpha.

It’s not even that he feels _threatened, _exactly. They’re not _close, _but… he knows her well enough now to know she’s not gonna try and take advantage of the situation. That’s fine, whatever, she’s not a threat to him in that way but being around her, like _this, _he feels… _tense. _Wary, in a way he really does _not _wanna be when he’s rediscovering the shittier biological traits of his body every other day. He knows her, sorta, but he doesn’t _know _her, and he doesn’t _want _her around when he can barely think, he wants- he wants his _sister, _or his mom. Jesus, he would go crawling on his hands and knees to his entire family right this second if he could. Confess to everything, sure, promise a lifetime of grovelling, _whatever, _he just- he _doesn’t _want to be alone, and with Farah… with Farah he might as well be.

He barely acknowledges her as they pull into the sun bleached parking lot, or as she gets out of the car and rushes to the reception to blow their limited cash on a crappy motel room. Not with his eyes, anyway. His nose is doing _plenty _of acknowledging of the pervasive scent of alpha in this goddamn car and it’s _not. Helping. _

When she flings open his door and orders him out with a terse; “Room three, _go,_” it’s pretty hard _not_ to acknowledge her.

He still gives it his best shot.

“Oh, for fu-_Todd. _Go.” She shoves the keys into his hand. _“Now.”_

He does. But _not _because she told him too.

“This- this is a waste of cash,” he snarls, staggering out of the car.

“Save it, Todd.” She takes the backpack and gestures to the motel impatiently. “Go- and _lock the door. _Call me when you’re… when it’s over.”

Todd’s cheeks are burning, his stomach is swooping and he’s hot and dizzy and _so. Fucking. Mad _that it’s damn near impossible to think straight. But he stomps off in the vague direction she gestured, the authority in her voice bubbling in his blood, not stopping until he’s catching himself against a door and fumbling with the lock.

It takes _way _longer than it should to get the damn key in right, even longer to make the thing work. But finally, _finally _he tumbles into the room, head already spinning from new, heightened smells of _bleach smoke sex piss alcohol cleaner damp mildew _as he repeats the process to lock himself in, shutting the world- and _Farah Black- _on the outside.

Then, and _only _then, does he let himself sink to his knees, curl up as small as he can go, and cry and cry until there’s nothing left inside but searing, simmering heat.

* * *

She shouldn’t take it personally. She _won’t _take it personally. This is just… honestly, what did she expect?

This is _Todd._

Maybe they’ve not known each other long, but she knew who Todd was the second she laid eyes on him.

Todd is… _difficult._

She grits her teeth, glaring daggers at the dust-weathered motel wall separating her from him- but, naturally, not doing a _thing _about the _smell. _

It’s not his fault, she knows that. If it came down to this or staying unguarded against pararibulitis attacks, well, she knows which one _she’d _go for. It was the only logical decision.

Doesn’t mean she has to be _happy _about it.

She clenches her fists, fidgeting in the car seat. Her skin itches. She can feel it from here- his pain, the confusion, the howling _emptiness _he must be feeling. She may not be _experienced _in this area but she’s read her stuff, she knows what to expect. Kind of different first-hand, though. _Very _different when she knows there’s not a damn thing she can do about it. Not that she _wants _to, not like _that, _it’s- it’s _Todd. _Sure, he’s a nice guy- sometimes- but he’s, well. _A guy. _AKA, _not _her type.

But damn it, he’s also an omega, and he’s in _pain _and she just… she wants it to _stop. _She just wants to do something, _anything _(preferably short of… _that) _to help.

Of course, he won’t have it. Won’t have anything from her, not to save his goddamn life. She can barely make him drink _coffee _if she made it, because he’s a stubborn _ass._

The steering wheel creaks in her grip. She hastily lets go, dropping her hands to her knees.

_Okay. Okay, Black, just… _stop. _Letting him get to you when he isn’t even here._

She sighs, head falling back against the rest, eyes closing a second. Not for long. She’s not gonna let her guard down, especially not out in the open like this. She just needs… she needs to stop _something _because she is getting a _lot _of sensory information right now and it’s enough to set her teeth on edge. She’s clenching them, hard, but not even the long-ingrained disapproval of her childhood dentist can separate them now.

God, she misses having a job with dental. She misses having a _job, _period. The new career didn’t exactly pan out the way she was hoping.

_“Quit talking like that- it’s not over, we’re gonna find him and we’ll all get back to normal. Jeez, it’s like you’ve given up on him.”_

She clenches her fists on her knees, the phantom belligerence of Todd Brotzman scratching at her nerves. It’s not even that she _disagrees- _she wants to believe in Dirk but, well, this is huge, and Dirk is… _Dirk. _She’s rational enough to know the chances of finding him like this are slim to none. But something about the way Todd says it, like it’s- like it’s a judgement on her character. Like it’s a _challenge _and he’s just waiting for her to back down, _daring _her not to. Like he’s picking a _fight. _

He’s so goddamn lucky she was raised well enough to know you never lay hands on an omega.

“Asshole,” she mutters, kicking frustratedly at some trash in the footwell. _His _trash, of course. “Stubborn, disrespectful, difficult _asshole. _Treating me like the goddamn enemy- we’re on the _run _from the _government _and he thinks _I’m _the enemy?! I work tooth and nail to keep us both safe and _this-!”_

She bites her tongue, halting her seething tirade. No. She’s better than this. Deep breath, think it through. Manage your anger, compartmentalise. Yes, Todd’s driving her crazy, but he’s got his reasons. He’s getting heats for the first time in over a decade, that’s big! Plus, pararibulitis. Plus stress, limited resources and medication, exhaustion, and, and…

And he’s an asshole. Yep, covered that.

God, he’s just. Not. What she knows. What she’s used to. What she _expects. _There’s a _way _things are _done. _The world is a dangerous place for people like Todd. Hell, that’s half of the reason she wanted to go into law enforcement- to look out for the little guy. Stand up for people who can’t stand up for themselves, the people at a disadvantage; social, biological. And she had to overcome a lot of that bullshit herself just to get where she is today, or… where she _was. _Lot of idiots won’t trust someone who looks like her easy, it takes work, it takes _perseverance, _it takes- it takes being _better than them, _showing that you can keep your head and do the job. She’s had trouble with that in the past, screwed up a lot of opportunities, but she worked her _ass _off to be the best for Patrick, for his daughter. To be strong, to be prepared, and have a little bit of dignity while she was at it.

Todd, though, Todd just… throws tantrums and calls it direct action. And for what? To alienate the _one person _in the whole world who _doesn’t _wanna turn him in to the feds. Just to prove he can. Just to spit in her face for _daring _to help, and proving her point in the process; how the hell does _any _of this foster confidence? How does acting out, picking fights he can’t win, how does _that _prove that he can take care of himself? How does that do _anything _except tell her that he won’t last five minutes without her?

She grinds her jaw, sets her hands back on the wheel, and begrudgingly thinks back to one of the many painfully true things her father ever told her.

_Omegas, Farah. They get… emotional. You just gotta make sure they don’t hurt themselves with it- keep ‘em safe, humour them if you gotta. Just don’t let it get out of hand. They’ll forget themselves if you let ‘em._

Keep him safe. Yeah, she can do that- at least, she’s trying.

Humour him? Harder, more frustrating, but… she can deal, at least for a while.

She has an unpleasant sinking feeling that step three might be on the horizon.

For a moment, she wonders what it’d be like to just ditch him. Let him fend for himself, if that’s what he wants to do, make her own way. Maybe she could catch up to Lydia in Mexico, start a new, quiet life away from all this crazy stuff she never wanted anything to do with in the first place.

Even the thought of ditching an unmated omega in crisis turns her stomach.

Besides, Dirk would want his omega- shit, not that they’re even… ugh, they were… _something. _Whatever they were, he… he would want Todd safe. And she owes him that much at least; a life for a life, Todd Brotzman for Lydia Spring. And Farah _never _forgets a debt. If Dirk can’t keep Todd safe- and Todd _definitely _can’t keep _himself _safe- then, well, it falls to her, and she will _not. _Let anyone else down on her watch.

_So please, Todd, _she quietly prays, glaring daggers at that wall. _Stop making it so goddamn hard to look after you._

* * *

It's only hours before Todd is crawling out from the other side of his heat; although it feels like much, much longer. He can't even be grateful it was so short lived. Knowing his luck, that means it'll be back in a few days with a vengeance.

He sighs, rolling onto his side. Around him the cheap bed sheets are tangled, drenched in sweat and other substances these motel rooms see way too much of. The whole place reeks of heat and desperation, anyone with even half a nose will be smelling the residual stench of needy omega for _weeks. _Hell, some of them might even get off on it.

The thought makes him sick to his stomach.

Blanching, he lurches out of bed, tripping over tangled sheets and dusty carpet to the bathroom. He barely makes it to the toilet before his crappy diner fries are making a reappearance.

_Well. That'll kill the mood, _he thinks, bitterly proud of himself for coming up with the bright side of puking his guts out.

Dirk would be proud, too.

...Great. He _had _to go and ruin it.

He feels his eyes prickle as his throat burns. Joke's on them; he's already cried himself out for one day.

Shit. This was a _huge_ waste of a day.

Cursing, he picks himself up and staggers out of the bathroom, hunting for his phone in the chaos. He eventually finds it, in the pocket of his hoodie where it lies abandoned on the floor. As he weighs the clunky burner cell in his hand he can't help but miss his own phone. He could _really_ use some mindless games to distract himself round about now. Something repetitive and dumb to numb his brain, keep him from spinning out. It's almost enough to make him miss playing Tetris by street light in the back of the car, squinting at his Game Boy Colour screen in the darkness while Amanda dozed on his shoulder.

Who is he kidding, it's _more _than enough to make him miss it.

His thumb hovers over speed dial one, hesitating. Soon as he presses that button, Farah will be busting down the door. Which is good. They've already wasted too much time, if they're gonna find Dirk or Amanda or _anyone_ they can't sit around in skeevy motels when they could be driving.

But then again, this skeevy motel room is the first space he's experienced that isn't full to the brim of Farah in _weeks._

He thinks, fidgets, and puts the phone down on the bed. _Not yet. _Just five more minutes. Five more minutes to keep his guard down, no big deal.

Sitting down next to it, he takes a deep breath through his nose. And then switches to his mouth because the smell threatens to set him off again. One deep breath, then two. Then three. The fourth doesn't hold up so well, broken in the middle by a dry sob. The fifth, a matching hiccup. By six, it's pretty much a lost cause.

He bends double, head almost between his knees and hands in his hair as he whimpers brokenly, too dehydrated to let out anything more than dry rasps. Too bone-tired and wrung out to keep himself together a second longer now he has a moment of goddamn peace. Too empty and desolate to do anything except cry and wheeze and think about everything he doesn't have, everything he doesn't even _deserve _to have anyway. God, but he wants them. He wants his mom and dad, wants them to tell him it's all gonna be alright. He wants his guitar, like it used to be, when playing it felt natural as breathing and didn't come with a shit ton of guilt. He wants his sister, _god, _he… he wants things to go back to the way they were, before he fucked it all up.

He reaches into his hoodie again, looking for it- Amanda’s old _Siouxsie and the Banshees_ tee, still imbued with her scent, the only piece of his already pitiful collection of nesting materials he’d been able to grab when he left everything behind. But it’s not there, probably still in the car. With Farah. Being muddied by her scent a little more with every passing minute. Probably for the best; he’d feel guilty drawing comfort from it anyway, after everything… he doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve her forgiveness, or her comfort. He doesn’t deserve _her, _or their parents or the band or…

Or Dirk.

No. He _definitely _doesn’t deserve Dirk. And yet here he is, chasing him across the country, possibly his only hope of an escape from whoever or _what_ever’s keeping him prisoner because there’s no one else. Because Dirk’s just as alone in the world as he is, probably even more so, and by some sick twist of fate that leaves it up to Todd to find him. To, what, save him? Break into a top-secret government facility and rescue him like, what, like some kind of… Liam Neeson wannabe? What kind of sick joke is that?! Todd couldn’t even save _himself, _he had to be carried out of that goddamn diner over Farah’s shoulder like some damsel in distress, and now it’s up to _him _to convince _her _that Dirk can be saved? That he’s _worth _saving? Worth risking everything for when he doesn’t even know that himself?!

Except… except he _does _know that, he just… doesn’t know _why _he knows that.

No. He may not deserve Dirk, but… Dirk deserves to be saved. He _needs _to be saved, if Todd wants to have any hope of finding Amanda, of figuring this shit out, of, of _ever _getting back to a normal life. He _needs _to find Dirk.

He _wants _to find Dirk.

He wants… he wants to do more than just find him. But that’s probably just the hormones talking.

_God_ he hopes it's just the hormones talking…

Speaking of, he can't let those stupid things throw them more off track than they already have.

He sighs, running his hands through his sweat-matted hair. God. He should take a shower. Or three. The smells of road and truck stops and _alpha_ all over him are making his skin feel gritty. He'd be surprised if this place had hot water, but maybe a cold shower would shift the last dregs of his haze anyway.

And to be honest, he's probably not the only one who could use it.

He looks down at the phone, shoulders sinking. He should call her. She'll want to know that he's - that it's over. He should tell her, suggest the shower thing before they move on. He guesses it's only fair, since she sprung most of their last money on this- _stupidly_, he might add. But whatever, they've got it now, may as well freshen up.

_Suck it up, Brotzman, _he gripes inwardly, picking up the phone. _She's the best shot you have at finding him._

He strikes the speed dial like flint over tinder, and once again his world goes up in smoke.

_Should have seen that coming._

* * *

She's not sure which comes first; the buzz from her phone, or the scream from the room. Either way, she's out of the car and across the motel parking lot in moments, palm hammering on the door so hard the tacky little ‘3’ swings down to dangle on one rusty screw.

“Todd?” she demands, hammering again for good measure.

All she gets in response is another hackle-raising cry. She sets her shoulders.

“Stand back, I'm coming in!”

It barely takes three well-placed shoves to get the door open; this place isn't exactly built for high security. As soon as she's through the door a powerful cacophony of smells and sounds engulfs her- the leftover cloud of Todd's heat and slick and desperation mingling with the bitter tang of tears and the cold, sobering wall of _fear_. For a moment she can't hear anything in the world outside the cutting shrieks of an omega in pain, for a split second she can't move for the cold dread and fear and _rage_ it ignites in her chest.

But now’s not the time.

She sweeps the room. No other figures, no signs of forced entry, no outside threat. Just Todd, half-clothed, hunched over on the bed and staring in pain and confusion at his own hand clenched around his still-ringing phone. She sniffs the air, wincing as she sifts past all the… _stuff, _and when she puts it aside she knows that smell underneath it all, that sharp, burnt edge of searing agony.

An attack.

“Todd,” she snaps, fists clenched in stern anxiety as she casts her eyes around for his pills. No luck. “What do you see?”

He doesn't look at her, doesn't blink, but through trembling lips he croaks: _“F-fire…”_

There's no time to waste.

Locating the bathroom in less than a second, she forges into the room to catch Todd by his shaking shoulder, steeling herself against the ripe, rich residual heat scent rolling off him at her touch. Normally she'd never lay hands on him but etiquette is kinda the _last_ of their problems right now. She marches him towards the tiny en suite, bundling him through the door and into a standing shower unit that looks like it's seen the rise and fall of empires.

“F-Farah,” he rasps, shaking like a leaf under her hand as she shoves him under the rickety shower head. “Wh-?”

“Sorry, Todd,” she mutters, seizing the tarnished handle grimly. “This is gonna be cold.”

She cranks it all the way to the left, the scent led pipes hiss ominously, and Todd yelps as he's doused in a harsh, temperamental jet of ice cold water.

It takes a while for the cries to dull down, for Todd's judders of pain to morph into chilled trembling. Takes a while for the agony to leave the air and be replaced by vacant numbness under the merciless barrage. She cranks the tap a little to the right, hoping against hope that there might be some warm water somewhere in this old bucket- she doesn't wanna switch out a crispy omega for a frostbitten one.

“Todd,” she says, hand hovering at his back. Now the life-or-death moment is passed she can't justify it to herself to touch him. “Todd, you okay?”

No answer. She grits her teeth and tries again.

_“Todd.”_

He still doesn't answer. He does, however, put his hand on the wall and sink, slowly, to the floor, trembling and glassy-eyed as he collapses in his sodden clothes on the cold ceramic footwell.

Wincing, she cranks the tap up some more and turns away. “Don't move,” she says, pointlessly. He's not going anywhere right now.

It takes her a few minutes to find his pills- the bottle had rolled out of his hoodie pocket and under the bed, so at least she knows she did the right thing by skipping that step. Still, it screws with his head to go without them, even if the worst is over. When she returns with his meds in hand she finds him right where she left him, crumpled in the shower basin like a wet rag and staring off into space, although his shivering’s subsided under the warming water.

Crouching down beside him, she holds out his pill bottle. “Here,” she says, wincing as the water starts to soak through her sleeve. “C’mon, y-you better take one.”

He doesn't respond, or even acknowledge her. Just stares off at nothing, folded up in quiet desolation. She takes a steadying breath, and gives it another shot.

_“Todd. _C’mon.”

Nothing. Either he's in literal shock or he's being deliberately obtuse. She'd bet money on the latter, but the possibility of the former is enough to make anxiety thrum under her skin.

“Please, Todd,” she groans, rubbing her temples. “We don't have _time_ for this. Just, just take your pill. Come on.”

He huffs quietly, but does nothing else. Honestly, it's worse than the total blank- he's listening, just not responding. Ignoring her for no reason except to be an asshole about it. She clenches her jaw.

_“Please?” _she tries, one last time, voice so brittle it could snap in a stiff breeze.

Unresponsive. She doesn’t know if the rushing in her ears is the shower or her own roaring blood, her pulse elevated in frustration and grudging concern as Todd stares right through her, but it’s getting louder and louder and _louder-_

“Todd, just_ take the goddamn pills!” _she snaps, loudest of all.

Finally, a response. He flinches back, colliding with the wall, hands snapping up to cover his neck as he curls protectively in on himself. But before Farah even has a chance to feel guilty about spooking him he’s meeting her eyes, and the light is back in them- and it’s _pissed, _staring her down challengingly as his slack mouth contorts into a scowl.

“Get. Out,” he growls.

“Todd, I’m-”

_“Don’t.” _He doesn’t break eye contact, though his fingers twitch restlessly on his neck. “Get the fuck out, get _out!”_

_“Todd-”_

_“OUT!”_

Why does she even _bother?!_

Confused, riled and totally, stupidly wrong-footed in that way Todd always manages to leave her, she stands up and throws the pill bottle at his feet, storming out. If he wants to sit there and catch hypothermia, _fine. _He’s not _her _omega, he can make his own goddamn mistakes.

_Well. Should have seen _that _coming._

* * *

To say the atmosphere in the car was _tense_ would be a fucking understatement and a half. But then, what else is new?

It's been three days since the motel thing. Three days since his heat and that attack, since Farah had to scoop his helpless ass off of the floor and dunk him in ice cold water. Since she raised her voice, and for a terrifying second every one of his defenses had crumbled under the force of her command, leaving him folded up in that gross shower feeling limp and exposed and trapped like a moth with broken wings, and he’d had to build himself back up with everything he had. Everything that he hadn’t lost to helplessness and the endless grind of the road. Yet. He’d gathered it all up, every pathetic scrap, holding it tight to his chest with white knuckles like Amanda’s shirt, a last meagre reserve to draw from when he needs to fight back. Sometimes when he doesn’t.

He’s fought Farah too much over the last few days. He knows he has. He’s not a fucking idiot, no matter what she may be starting to think; he _knows _that the plans she lays out are good ones, better than anything he could come up with. What kind of skills does he have in comparison? What the hell does he have to offer to anything she says? Some disjointed snippets of legalese leftover from law school, maybe, the ones that weren’t scrubbed from his brain by inattentiveness and drug misuse. And one hastily, _stupidly _salvaged box of fucking cassette tapes. Real useful. She should be making the plans. It’s in _both _of their best interests for her to make the plans but ever since that stupid, _stupid _incident it’s like he can’t help but push back, spitting like a cat against every word she says. It’s dumb. It’s childish and unhelpful and he _knows _it.

Worst of all, so does she.

But that’s just it, right? Better to have her look at him like he’s a mouthy toddler than like he’s a fucking delicate piece of glass. He can’t fucking stand it, the wary, pitying looks that cross her eyes when he clenches his fists through an attack, when the surging hormones give him shakes and cold sweats. He sees her hand move towards him, before it’s stopped by her own sense of propriety or his fiery glares, instinctually going to calm him like he’s some kind of wilful, rabid animal. And then when the concern has passed there’s annoyance, frustration, and he feels like less of a wild dog and more of a disobedient puppy pissing on the rug. He feels ten inches tall under that stare, and it makes his skin fucking crawl.

Not that there’s anything special about that. Everything makes his skin crawl right now. Being in the car, being in public, sleeping in places a thousand other people have slept before. Being perceived, by anyone- but most of all the alphas. They don’t bump into too many of them, thank god, but Todd feels their eyes on him. Mated, unmated, male, female, it doesn’t even matter; none of them can resist at least a glance. He knows damn well what he looks like, what he _reeks _of. Even to his own nose he’s fucking ripe. He’s been making the same clothes last days at a time where necessary, ducks in and out of heats with barely an opportunity for a shower in between. It’s only because of Farah that he hasn’t been bothered overmuch about it- no passes, no propositions, no complaints about public indecency. All because his scent, strong as it is, is mingled with hers. With alpha.

One particular alpha, who definitely is _not _his mate, and smells just as fucking obnoxious as he does.

At least not all the stares he gets are lecherous. But that’s only because the rest are judgmental, disapproving; eyes squinting nastily as brains concoct a thousand seedy reasons for an unmated alpha and omega pair to be slumming it, stinking of each other and casting shifty eyes at anyone who breathes in their direction. Most of the time, when they’ve had a moment to think about it, those eyes settle on Todd alone, blaming him, judging him, riveted. Muttering under their breath. From what little he picks up- snippets of conversation caught by paranoid, oversensitive ears- the general consensus is that he’s an omega hooker and Farah’s paying through the nose for an immersive scenting experience. The less flattering one is that he’s much, much cheaper than that and just letting her string him along for scraps. A few concerned citizens briefly worry that he’s a helpless human trafficking victim, but he attempts to smile and dissuade those ones where he can- last thing he needs with the FBI on their tail already is a pattern of suspicious sightings to put them on the map.

But smiles and glares and outright confrontational outbursts can’t stop people thinking. Can’t stop them seeing, and judging, and making themselves a presence on Todd’s mind even when he doesn’t want them there, even when they’re people he’s never gonna see again. The weight of their eyes and assumptions presses down on his shoulders day in, day out, until he feels like his back could break under them unless he pushes and pushes and _pushes _back_, _casting everything and everyone aside furiously with whatever stubbornness he can dredge up, lashing out and mindlessly, indiscriminately snapping at the slightest provocation. At the world. At the eyes and the whispers.

And, when he feels her hand hovering protectively, almost possessively at his lower back, at Farah.

Okay, he’s not proud of it. She only pulls that shit when he’s being given too much attention, or when the stares turn threatening. He knows she’s trying to cover his back and look out for him but that doesn’t stop the jolt of discomfort up his spine, or the rising anger as watching alphas avert their eyes to her display, as if her claim is the only one that matters. As if his own uneasiness hadn’t even registered to them. As if he’s _hers- _her problem, her property.

Sometimes even the sight of her hand on the gearstick between them makes him tense.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if they could just _stop _for a little while. Just take a fucking break. A day, two, three, as many as they could get where they don’t have to live and breathe each other. Where they can leave the car windows open and let the stale, stuffy scent of them both dissipate, where they can have their own rooms, their own space, with showers and TV and proper food that didn’t come out of vending machines. Just a little fucking fresh air and a rest from constantly looking over their shoulders. Maybe then they could both calm down, collect themselves, Todd could find some way to drag himself back into a less hostile headspace and they could return to the road trip with some sort of ceasefire in place. Maybe they could even make it a full week without biting each other’s heads off after something like that.

But they can’t afford that kind of space and time. They can’t stop moving, can’t waste what little emergency money they had left once their bank accounts got frozen. Sometimes for days on end it’s just them, the car, and two sleeping bags in a too-small space. If Todd ever gets a second of sleep these days, it’s when he crashes out against his will, too exhausted to heed the nagging, itching sense of unease prickling on the back of his neck from having the scent of highly-strung alpha needling at his senses. He wakes up more exhausted than ever, skin clammy and head pounding, to Farah fidgeting with the air con and trying to pretend she isn’t hyper aware of him.

He fucking _hates _that she’s hyperaware of him. Hates how transparent she is.

He fucking wants to melt, soundlessly and scentlessly into the shadows and not come out until the world makes sense again.

Todd blinks out at the dry, dusty stretch of featureless desert ahead of them, and tries to return the favour. Tries to pretend she’s not here. Tries to pretend _he’s _not here. God, he’d kill to be anywhere else but here. If he closes his eyes and concentrates real hard, maybe he can convince himself for a second that the smell pervading his senses is a different alpha. One with blue eyes and a dumb jacket and who really shouldn’t be trusted behind the wheel of a tricycle, let alone an entire car. One he doesn’t have to fight just to keep some sense of identity. One he doesn’t _want _to.

Who’s he kidding? He has a shitty imagination.

That’s all he has now, he guesses, to get him through this. That and the clothes on his back, the pills in his pocket, and the barely-there remains of his fight; and that’s getting heavier and heavier with every mile.

Eyelids propped open by prickling unease, hands trembling with the same, Todd puts it down a second and lets the vastness of the desert overwhelm him, letting himself subside into something small and very, very broken in the face of it.

* * *

Farah, eyes on the road and hands white-knuckled on the wheel, doesn’t say a word.

**Author's Note:**

> Before you get too frustrated about Farah and Todd and how they're (poorly) handling their differences, please note the discussions of racism and sexism tags; the conversation around their dynamic is going to open out over the course of this fic, and they will reach a sort of understanding once they've discussed their differences. I'm not going to pretend Todd automatically has it harder or is in the right because he's an omega, considering the alpha he's lashing out at is also a black woman, but they have both faced very different forms of belittlement and discrimination and have certain conditioned prejudices that will be touched upon in part two.
> 
> If you were brave/masochistic enough to make it through part one (especially before I've written the other parts) I would love to hear your thoughts and/or chat about my omegaverse dears; comments are much appreciated, and I'm also on tumblr @sexycoinkidicks.
> 
> Thank you for reading <3


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